run:program:
by radishface
Summary: CH. 5 UP! Smith is an exile now, and isn't it pointless to exist if he doesn't have a purpose in the Matrix? ... But exiles help each other; Smith meets Persephone and she begins to sort some things out for him. Eventual SLASH.
1. 1exe

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A:/run/program/1.exe

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Disclaimers: The Matrix belongs to those pervert brothers. Has anybody else played _Enter the Matrix_ from Niobe's POV and reached the Chateau level? I grumble deeply. Fanboys and their fan service. _

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Warnings and Rants: This is a Smith-fic, and I'm experimenting with the style. Eventually will be slashy, but for now, it's all … general. You can look at it as a piece of Smith introspective-ness and then never come back to it once I start to introduce Neo into it. WAHA! 

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Summary: Smith finds a key after the Burly Brawl. Surprise, it unlocks to a room in the Chateau, and he sits down with Persephone and they talk. 

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Radishface

  
  
He is walking, in the act of walking, but really, he is following the scent of something. This trail that leads to the doors, the programming doors. And he is only one of himself right now, but he can quickly make it so that he is a hundred, perhaps even a thousand. He wishes he had a reason to do so. It makes him smile to see another one of him walking around, acting as nonchalantly as he does, yet on the scope for the exact same thing, to find _him,_ and destroy _him._ And even as he is _here,_ in this programming maintenance room, he knows that there might be another one of him, halfway across the Matrix, but he doesn't care about the others, what kind of trouble _they_ are causing, no, from that point when he was killed and from that point he came back to life, the only thing he cared about was eliminating _him._  
  
And there is this key that he found. He didn't know how it got there, but he has his suspicions. It was after he was fighting, replicating, after that rebel flew off before he could attack again, that was when the rest of him dispersed and he was left standing there, thinking to himself, _but we'll meet again, won't we, Mister Anderson._ Then one of him turned around to face him and had asked him  
  
_why do you call him that?_  
  
He had frowned, he had remembered doing that, and then he had willed something to happen and then the man that was himself wasn't there anymore, and it was just a middle-aged woman, blinking furiously and rubbing at her face, taking one oblivious glance at him and wondering how in the world she had gotten where she was.   
  
The bench that had been there when he had first approached _him_ is in ruins up against the side of the wall, smashed and sabotaged, and he wonders that if something breaks in the Matrix, is it because it is _meant_ to break, because everything is controlled and in a computer, or is it because these humans really have free will of their own to destroy what they want to?   
  
And that was where he had found that key, lying inconspicuously among the wood and the metal and the stone. He had picked it up and had looked at it, at the little grooves along the side, and it was as if it had been untouched in the course of the fight.   
  
The Oracle had been here, he knew that. She might have been the one who had sat on the bench, she might have left it here. But she couldn't have left it for _him_ because if she had, then he would have put it away, would have swallowed it to ensure its security. So it wasn't meant for _him._   
  
Although he denied it, there was a part of him, more rational, more logical, that whispered to him, _the Oracle doesn't make mistakes, she couldn't have left it there on accident, and even though the Oracle wasn't the Keymaker and didn't have the keys necessary it was all linked, wasn't it, it was all connected in the Matrix, and the two programs would have some way of communicating and they knew everything that was going to happen even if he didn't and that must mean that this key was meant for himself._  
  
So here he is now, in this hallway of white and doors of green, and he pushes the key into the knob and he tells himself that whatever is on the other side of this door shouldn't be anything he can't handle, and that whomever he meets will either be expecting him or not, and he pushes the door open, assertively, like he always does.   
  
"Hello."   
  
"Hello."   
  
The woman on the couch stretches slightly and she stands up, walks up to him, and he is alert now, because this can't be one of the programs. There's a noise buzzing in his head, and he realizes that this isn't in the Matrix at all. And he tells himself not to act without logic, without reason, because that's not what machines are meant to do. She stares at him, her hands placing themselves on her hips, her dress an off-white, a creamy, milky shade, and her hair is dark and is falling in cascades down her back so that her neck is exposed to him, the vein in her neck moves as she speaks to him.   
  
"I was not expecting you." She says in a low, whispery voice, tainted, hued with an accent. "Not today."   
  
She is not within the Matrix, and she knows she's not supposed to be, and she knows she doesn't want to be. "Then when were you expecting me?"   
  
She smiles, and turns back around to sit down again, and he stands where he is. "I was expecting you to come when you realized why you had the key." She points to the object he holds in his hands, cold and biting, the teeth of the key sinking into his palm.  
  
He doesn't say anything, just stands there, and realizes that he has to think, that it is programmed into him.   
  
"Who are you?" He says, and she laughs.   
  
"My name is Persephone." She replies easily. She does not ask for his name, because such trivialities are not necessary. When he realizes this, he thinks to himself, _then why did I ask her name?_   
  
"I am the wife of the Merovingian." She continues. "And I know you know the name."  
  
"Exiles." He murmurs under his breath, and his fingers itch to strike her, because that is the correct, automated response.   
  
"Yes, we are exiles." She smiles again. "As are you."   
  
He wills himself not to flinch at that response. It is true, of course it is, and that is logic in itself, and that is the cause of him coming here, the effect of his death at _his_ hands. But he had been reborn, hadn't he? That means he is destined to come back, to serve the Matrix to some extent. But here he is, with an exile, and he is not killing her like he would have been programmed to do.   
  
"Please." She waves her hand in a nonchalant gesture. "Sit down."   
  
He finds himself sitting down, the arms of the leather chair cool under his fingertips, and he leans forward slightly, always apprehensive. He is relaxed, though, for some reason he can't quite determine. He is not trying to kill. Nobody is trying to kill him, and it is a new thing, for once. His hand twitches, the urge to strangle is undeniable, but he doesn't do anything. He sits there, and lets this contentment wash over him, this feeling of worthlessness.   
  
He is an exile.   
  
"You don't know why you are here." The woman continues. "And you don't wonder. Do you simply accept it, as many do?"  
  
"That what?" He asks. He knows the answer.   
  
"That we all live in the Matrix." She puts a finger to her lips, thoughtful. "That this is a nice place to live. It is capitalist, after all. You make the most of what you have and you let it go from there. And there are the law enforcers, like you once were." Her voice has become lilting, sardonic, and he leans into it with ease, letting the insinuations wash over him like equations being pounded into his mind. "Have you heard stories about the outside?"   
  
He nods, carefully.   
  
"It is a crude place." The upper part of her lip curls, and he realizes that she is just going through the motions of disgust, that she doesn't feel anything at all, that she, in a way, is more like an Agent than he once was, because of her detachment, and because of something else.   
  
"You are so much more different, are you not?" She continues, without waiting for his answer. "Most Agents will not care whom they kill as long as they kill them. But you."   
  
His breath seems to still, and his head is spinning. He is almost lost.   
  
"But I think you are _focused_ on something." She laughs. "Ah, don't make that face. It's true, I can feel it, all the way from where I'm sitting here. That energy is so high I can almost _taste_ it, delicious." And yet such focus is unusual for a machine, yes? You have flaws."   
  
He had convinced himself he was perfect, that he was a perfect Agent, that he was a machine as pure as they came, only obeying orders from above. And yet now he realizes that a real machine does not need to convince himself of _anything,_ and he wonders when and why he changed.   
  
It is then that she asks him an absurd question.   
  
"Who is it that you are so _focused_ on?" But he knows that she already has suspicions, and that she is already there at knowledge. But he denies it himself.   
  
And when she takes his hand, her fingers lacing with his, he finds himself going cold, as if the life is being sucked out of him, and her eyes are closed and he wonders if she is always like this, this exile, if she has nothing else to do and so she lives other people's lives. And then she pulls away and she smiles very knowingly, and he finds his old instincts are rising again, that he wants to kill her.   
  
_But wouldn't you have something you'd rather do?_  
  
And suddenly he feels that he can't be bothered. She laughs.   
  
"You love." She says, quite simply.   
  
"I love to hate." He corrects, and leaves the way he came, suddenly wanting to see _him,_ wanting to throw him into a wall and watch his head snap back against the bricks like they did before he found the key. He wants to see surprise, minute as it is, on that pale face, somehow rip those sunglasses off him so he can watch the emotion in his eyes, because _he_ is not a machine, he is a human, and he can _feel._  
  
He pushes the key into the lock, and ignores her when she says _you will come back._  
  
And he walks outside, into the white corridor, and he meets a rebel, and his instincts are provoked, and he says _but I didn't expect you_ before he can stop himself.   
  
She is on her defense, this dark-skinned woman, and he knows she knows where _Neo_ is.   
  
If he can capture her, he thinks to himself, he can copy himself onto her, and stream into the world outside, and find Neo that way, and kill him, and watch the humanity of it, as the blood runs through his fingers and see the eyes behind the sunglasses clear and unfocused as he is dying, and then Smith will die with him, when he puts a knife in his throat, when he falls lifeless into those arms that want to crush his body and knock the life out of him. His last thoughts as he is dying will be that he has lived to kill _Neo,_ and that it is the only time he has lived while being this machine, and this is the one thing that he will love to do.   
  
He smiles to himself, and wishes for it to happen.  
  



	2. 2exe

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A:/run/program/2.exe

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Disclaimers: The Matrix belongs to those fan boy brothers. They make Niobe and Persephone make out. How fan-boyish can you get? You should have more maturity if you're a movie producer! 

Warnings and Rants: This is a Smith-fic, and I'm experimenting with the style. Eventually there will be more slashiness. Oh yeah… in here be spoilers for The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and Enter the Matrix.

Summary: Smith realizes he's an exile, unbound to the Matrix anymore. And then... when is he going to understand this other thing?

Status: 2/?

Radishface

She had fought well, he thought. Or rather, she had run very quickly. She had disappeared into one of the doors, randomly, had let him chase her through an half-constructed skyscraper. And then she had been stuck in a room, her human emotions of frustration and desperation had been apparent and he had laughed to himself, and blown a hole in the wall, started to shoot at her. However, she had escaped him, and then flew down the stairs, ran out the back door. She had interrupted a woman in her work and had turned the sewing tables over as she struggled to hinder his path, but he had run after her as if there had been nothing there. And then they were in Chinatown, the confusing mazes of streets smelling like the butcher shop, the blood dripping from the animals. Humans, he had thought, humans, and rebels, and their endless filth.   
  
She has escaped him, though. She has made it to the hardline in the cathedral, and he wondered why he didn't just trace the hardline and order more of himself there, to destroy it. He could have killed her if she hadn't a way to escape, and humans had their limitations, they could not run forever, even if they could see that the Matrix was only a computer program and they could twist it sometimes.   
  
But if he kills her, he can't interrogate her. And a part of him tells him that there isn't any need to interrogate her because she may not speak, anyway. This one, this woman, is related to Morpheus in some way and possesses his unending stubbornness, his dogmatic structure, his eternally stoic expression, although she carries it with less conviction.   
  
She does not know _him,_ completely, though. She does not know _Neo_, where _Neo_ is and what is going on aboard that rebel ship, she is with a battalion of her own, fighting her own personal battles in this epic struggle.   
  
So it is pointless to run after her. It is pointless to exert his energy in such a way when he can be doing other things.   
  
Ah, but that is it. Since he is an exile now, as the Merovingian's wife has so delicately put it, he has no more assignments from the top, no more missions to complete, no more need to endanger himself, to risk another deletion, or another attempt at it.   
  
_But look,_ his mind tells him, _you have nothing else to do. You serve no more purpose in the Matrix. They have tried to delete you, and you have escaped it because you didn't wish it to be. And chasing this human provides you with something to do._  
  
And then, _Do I feel boredom, then? Do I feel incomplete without something to do? Do I feel bereft of an activity, do I feel as if my hands and my legs and my mind needs to be constantly working and moving? This doesn't supposed to happen. You have no orders._  
  
_I have no orders._ He had thought, and had infused conviction into his steps, had chased her as _if_he had been meant to do this, made that way. Because if he catches her, he can take her somewhere, and find out where _he_ is, and then he can access the Sentinel database and order them to destroy their ship, and kill him, and that would be the end of it, and the Matrix will be preserved.   
  
He doesn't say it can be _saved._ It is not a thing that is to be _saved,_ because it is not precious.   
  
"And where would you be, if it were destroyed?"   
  
He turns his head around and is met with a copy of himself, perhaps one he had created earlier that day.   
  
He doesn't answer, and merely looks straight ahead, and chooses not to see a blue sky and the green grass of the park he is walking past, chooses not to see the trees, the benches, the children playing on the swings, the mothers watching nearby. And the moment he thinks that, he is seeing an endless black space, green and white numbers and symbols floating like they are randomly arranged on this black canvas, individual specks of humanity, of nature, and it is supposed to resemble it. And he sees that the air is filled with it too, the oxygen, the krypton, the nitrogen, these elements, weightless and heavy, all the same, scattered like these people are scattered, like he is scattered-- across this place with no definition. He turns to the copy of himself and sees the same thing, the black infinity of emptiness where it is designated, the fluid code that is spawning from the region where the head is, covering the body like water surrounding a swimmer. When he looks deeper, he sees the vestiges of the man he had possessed that day, the man's own code floating about in its container, unaware of what is happening.   
  
_I don't know._ He thinks, and the other him does not smile. They are both thinking the same things, and it is visible between them that this is the first time he has thought this thing, this uncertainty, this _I don't know._ Of course he knows what will happen. He knows that if the Matrix were destroyed, he will be eliminated, and the beauty of these greens and whites painted on this black will disappear, and he will only be left with the vacuum, this darkness, and he will share the same fate as well. He wants to take off his sunglasses, because they are superfluous there, they do not serve any _purpose_ to help him see, to help him _realize_ what he does not process, and they only conserve his anonymity, his state of nonentity.   
  
"So you are fighting," the other him says, "because you wish to maintain yourself."   
  
"No," he says, and then tells himself to disappear, to free this cocoon of the human from within himself, to return to being himself, his _true_ self.   
  
The man opposite him begins to melt away, and seems to invert upon himself, and then another face springs out of the thawing skin, and blue eyes stare into his, and lips form words, and he barely registers them.   
  
"How'd I get here?" The man is blinking, his dirty blonde hair glinting in the sun, and he is healthy, breathing, and there is life and blood and air flowing in him in this world, and in the other, he is still there in that cocoon, huddled within himself, unaware of what is happening around him.   
  
Smith cocks his head to one side and assumes the confidence, the authority, the _meaning_ he once held, and thinks, _there is no driving force, as the Merovingian's wife says. I am merely doing what I am programmed to do._  
  
And the man is still looking at him and looking around him and Smith says, "I don't know."   
  
  
  
He quickly realizes that this key that was left to him is universal. It takes him time to find a door in which a key will fit, because this world is automated, and this world has sliding doors of glass and plastic. A door, he thinks, is only hiding something on both sides.   
  
He pushes that part to the back of his head, the one that says in his own voice that he doesn't know, that he is losing something, this conviction, this certainty, and that in that, he is losing a part of himself, and may as well be deleted, for what is an Agent, no matter if he is an exile, if he is something else?  
  
The room he is in is the same room he was in last time, but with the absence of the Merovingian's wife. The couch that she had been sitting on is located in the enter of the room, directly facing the door. It makes him think that perhaps the furniture in this place is all arranged so they resemble their owners, so that each of them is prepared to face the other side of that door, the unknowns that will either be unlocked or remain as they are. But the Merovingian's wife is not here, is not going to confront him, and he finds himself striding over to the couch, and sitting down on it, in the middle of this empty room, waiting for something.   
  
And maybe he is waiting for a stray thought to enter his head. And there it is, irrational and ludicrous. _What do the rebels see the Matrix as?_  
  
Is is a question that can be phrased in many ways. He knows the rebels see the Matrix as a gilded cage, as an ugly glass object that changes faces to those who view it, something that is imprisoning their human kind, something that needs to be destroyed for a greater cause, for this _freedom_, this concept of _freedom_ that is elusive to him.   
  
And then it is a question that can be answered literally. The rebels all have some ability, he thinks, to see the Matrix for what it really is, and that is why they can bend the rules, if only temporarily. It is only _Neo_ that can completely see it for what it is, without the assistance of a computer screen, without anything acting as a translator so he can interpret it.   
  
The man can _see_ everything, just as Smith can, in this unprotected, naked fashion, this code that changes constantly, this world structured from illusions crafted from electric fields, and that is what makes him dangerous, this is what makes him so different. He is the _one_, his mind whispers through his ear, _of course he could_,and Smith wants to speculate whether _Neo_ sees everything around him as black emptiness and sparkling green that resembles water. He wants to consider that when they are fighting, _Neo_ sees him as the person that is fabricated to resemble a _human_, and not the impersonal vacancy that everything is created from.   
  
The room is cold, he realizes, the marble on the floor is chilling, the air around him is crumbling in icicles, and then the Merovingian's wife walks in through the set of doors in front of him, and this time, it is him who is sitting there to receive her, and not the other way around.   
  
"Hello." She says, pausing slightly in the doorway, and then turning around so she can close the doors.   
  
He does not greet her in return. It is unnecessary, and it is so very _like_ the Merovingian exile to indulge in his excesses, from greetings to this _place,_ this frivolity.  
  
"And what," the Merovingian's wife smiles, and walks to him, "have I done, to deserve such company today?"   
  
"Nothing." He says.  
  
"You are not a good liar, you realize?" She takes a seat next to him. "You must know that."   
  
_Liar._  
  
"Would you like something to drink, perhaps?" She turns to him, and puts a hand very close to his own. They do not touch, but he can feel the coldness emanating off of her, seeking the warmth of his body, but there isn't any.   
  
"No." He says.   
  
"And you _are_ quite impolite." She murmurs, laughing slightly, sitting back up, reclining so that her back rests against the couch. "Won't you remove your glasses in a lady's presence?"   
  
He can't, he thinks. He won't.   
  
"If you won't, then." She says, and puts her hand on his knee, and he wills himself not to flinch as something seems to be _flowing_ out of him, and into her, and then it disappates into the air, a memory of what was there.   
  
"Have you been thinking?" She leans back, and smiles, and there is lust there for more of this, more of this touching, and absorbing, and analyzing, but she restrains herself.   
  
"I have been." He says, steels his voice to sound without emotion, without feeling, without _I feel_ this and _I want_ that, except there is nothing that he feels, nothing that he wants, he is a machine, repeat, repeat, repeat.   
  
"Did you know," she begins, and he knows that she wants him to listen, and that he won't be able to help it, because other than that, there is silence in this room, and it is getting dim outside, and he can barely make out her features. "Did you know that I kissed him?"  
  
His vision suddenly changes from seeing things the way they are meant to be seen to the way he had seen earlier before, the black, the green rain from the sky, the Merovingian's wife's pale face and dark hair changes to something else entirely, with bare outlines and fluid code and running text that is her skin, her blood, and then it reverts back, and he is breathing faster. He tells himself it is this inconsistency, this sudden fluctuation in his programming.   
  
"Of course he was reluctant," she continues conversationally. "And that girl was standing there, and she hated me, but I don't see why she would, because I was not taking anything from her besides one _kiss._" She laughs, and Smith is brought back to reality, with her, in this room, and he looks at her. "And what is a kiss that means everything, and means nothing at the same time? It is an... _amusement._"   
  
"So it was." He says, after a pause, and he can feel her eyes on him, scrutinizing. He doesn't know what there is to analyze. There isn's anything there. Just. Just--  
  
"I am bored to _death_ here." She starts again. "There is nothing better to do. They have a mission, and if I am obliterated, so be it. Maybe I will feel _afraid,_ in those last moments."   
  
He stands up, before the temptation of curiosity can overtake him, and begins to walk to the door, his key in hand, and he will throw it away, he will melt it so that it doesn't resemble anything after he is done. He does not want to know, he has no desire to for knowledge. He is an Agent, he was an Agent.  
  
"Do you still wish to kill him?" She calls out after him, not moving from her seat on the couch, and he stops walking for a minute, if only to answer her.   
  
"Yes." He says.   
  
"For what?" She is laughing again. "For the Matrix? So they will accept you again, so you can redeem yourself?"   
  
_No._   
  
She looks inquiringly at him. "For your pride, because he killed you once before?"   
  
He doesn't say anything.   
  
"_Pourquoi?_" She asks again. "_Pourquoi? Est-ce que c'est parce que tu veux qu'il te remarque? Pourtant il pense déjà à toi tout le temps."_

"  
  
"No." He says, and he has found his ease again, the way the words can slip off his tongue, the way they flow together. Something is repairing itself inside of him, mending the hole that was there, and the doubt in the back of his mind is being pushed to the front, only to be hacked at, mutilated, until it is an indistinguishable wreck. Thinking about _killing_ Neo, seeing, hearing that spine break under his hands, to feel that neck pulsing their beat in his fingers, it seems to steady him, seems to give him a sense of resolution, a reason to exist, and that one thing is just to _kill him._   
  
It is absurdly simple, and he exits.  
  


Excuse my French if it's not… correct… I don't quite have complete mastery over it yet. _ Um… what it says is something along the lines of, "Why? Is it because you want him to notice you? But he already thinks of you all the time." 

C&C is much appreciated! ^_^


	3. 3exe

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A:/run/program/3.exe

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Disclaimers: The Matrix belongs to those pervert brothers. Has anybody else played _Enter the Matrix_ from Niobe's POV and reached the Chateau level? I grumble deeply. Fanboys and their fan service. 

__

Warnings and Rants: This is a Smith-fic, and I'm experimenting with the style. Eventually will be slashy, but for now, it's all pretty general. I'm getting there, though… slowly… slowly… __ I even got a review that thought this was a Smith/Persephone fic… 

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Summary: Agent Smith decides to rid himself of that key… 

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Status: 3/?

Look at the sky, he tells himself. Maybe you'll see Neo, the hero he thinks he is, soaring above, maybe you'll catch a glimpse of him as he blazes past you and doesn't spare you a second glance. There are clouds up there, he thinks, clouds, vapor, whatever it is, and if you see those move, maybe it's because of the wind that moves them, maybe it's Neo ripping through them like paper, not because of air currents and opposing electrical charges.   
  
When it rains, it will rain something organic, something like blood.   
  
Drop the key, he tells himself. Drop it.   
  
But. Look at the water, see the rippling, see how volatile it is. That is what you are. You are this one minute and then that the next.   
  
He feels the thing between his fingers, he is clenching it tight, so that it bites into his skin, like it did before, when he first found it. He can almost taste the metal of the opportunity, this opportunity that he holds, the one that unlocks the door, the one that promises him an understanding of what he cannot possibly comprehend. I want to, he thinks. I want to throw it away.   
  
And so he does. He watches the key slip out of his hands, almost as if he is a spectator and not the one doing it-- he watches the key fall a little way before being swallowed by the murky depths of the ocean, the white froth of the ship cutting through the water, and he blinks, but Agents don't do that.   
  
And then he sees it again, this code, this black, this green, these electromagnetic pulses that also run through the core of his body. The code is constantly changing, because it is fluid, because information is volatile, sudden. He watches this two-dimensional world, he sees the code of the key as it changes to accommodate the depths of the water, how it seems to sink deeper and deeper, but is actually remaining in the same place. Doesn't anybody else know that? That this, that the Matrix, in itself, is only a thing of paper? That once you crumple it, you, the speck, this insignificant thing, can jump to another spot? And then when that crumpled thing reopens, reawakened, reloaded, then you will end up somewhere completely different.   
  
Agent Smith is standing at the end of a deserted pier, the rotting wood creaking gently under his feet, a promise of better things to come, a prophecy of the world around him. The nails stick up irregularly on the planks, their curling fingers seek to twist, and yet, they are undemanding. He watches this, he observes all of this, how the key has fallen into the water, how it is searching for a way to the bottom. The sky is a mocking blue, the water is uncomprehending, it is turquoise, and aqua, and green. And at the same time, there is no color.   
  
The gulls flap mindlessly in the air, and Smith realizes that all these animals are programs as well. Only the humans are the real things, only the humans are alive.   
  
_Aren't you alive as well?_  
  
The definition of being alive was ambiguous, he reasoned. If it meant flesh and blood, he could not be included in that category. But if it meant a semblance of adrenaline, if it meant that it was as if blood was pounding through your veins, the he could be.   
  
He feels himself disappearing as he thinks about this, a wave of water seems to be engulfing him, that's what it feels like. He is still standing on the pier, and he has done what he has wanted to do, he has disposed of what was distracting him from his purpose, the only thing he has left. He is not alone in his endeavors, but he is alone in his reasons.   
  
He realizes it when something changes, something noticeable, in the air, in the water. It seems as if everything stands still for a second, as if the physics, the anatomy of this world, has changed in that one moment. And when it returns to normal, this distinct pulsing is gone, and Smith turns around.   
  
A man in white stands in front of him, his hands are held loosely at his sides. "You are there." He says. He does not say, _hello,_ he does not say, _how are you, _he does not say _I was sent here to dispatch you._ Formalities are disrupted, and Agent Smith wonders, and wonders why his hands are shaking, why he is thinking about the key which has sunk to the bottom of the Matrix, to the bottom of a heart he does not possess.   
  
"Will you come with me?" The man asks, peers at him behind his sunglasses. He cannot decipher whether those eyes are curious or whether they are indifferent, but although the voice is cold, it is courteous. The man points to an abandoned warehouse, a hundred feet away, the metal sheeting of the roof rusted, the walls crooked, the windows cracked. And when did this happen? When did the building fall apart, or had it always been that way? Was this man part of a process he had to fulfill, or was this the only question he could ask? He looks away, sees a lone fisherman out on the wharf.   
  
"Where to?" He asks, turns back to the man in white.   
  
"I would like to speak with you." The man replies.   
  
"You can speak to me here." Smith says, slowly. This man, he thinks. I should kill him. I know who he is, who he works for. This man is Seraph, he thinks, racking his brains, searching for the data. This man is Seraph, guardian of the Oracle. He takes people in, shows them out. He was there when I fought _him,_ he was the one who told Neo that they had to leave, that there was something coming. And then Neo put his sunglasses on, and I've never seen his eyes since when he killed me.  
  
_It's his fault._  
  
_For doing what?_  
  
"I believe." Seraph says, walking so that he is closer, walking so that both of them are standing over the edge of the pier, and one of them will shove the other one in, it is expected. "I believe you lost something."   
  
"I didn't lose it." Smith says.   
  
_I willingly gave it up._   
  
It was never meant for him, never should have been. He does not know why he visited the Merovingian's wife, why he saw the black and the green and the code of the Matrix without willing himself to. There is an infinite cloud, this eternal mystery, and Seraph doesn't hold the key to it, and the Merovingian's wife doesn't hold it either. This is the one flaw, he tells himself. It's not the Merovingian and his playground, it's not the rebels, it's not anything that plagues the world with sickness and disease and hunger. This imperfection is what makes the Matrix perfect, and Neo is the one who will be its undoing.   
  
"You realize." Seraph said, clasping his hands behind his back, looking out to sea. "You realize it was meant for you."   
  
_This is the mistake,_ he tells himself repeatedly. _This is the mistake. This key. What purpose does it serve, what purpose did it serve, what purpose will it serve? _It is the same question you ask yourself.  
  
"I left it there." Seraph says, turning his head slightly towards the agent, and Smith wills himself to look away. "The Keymaker gave it to the Oracle before he left, and that day, you know that day."   
  
"You." Agent Smith suddenly turns around to face him. "What are you?"   
  
Seraph smiles. "I am just a messenger." He says. "You would never meet _Delphi_ herself, would you?"   
  
Smith doesn't say anything, he stands there, waiting. There is a moment of enlightenment that dawns on all humans at one point in their lives, he thinks. And yet, this experience, in all its varying degrees, will never happen to us, these machines, this world. A messenger is just a messenger, with winged feet, he recalls, Greek legends, Hermes. And that is what Seraph is.   
  
The man turns away, starts walking in the opposite direction, and Smith does not follow him with his eyes, the sun is going down, and the fisherman is bringing his boat in, reeling his nets in, watch the fish gleam in the last rays of sun.   
  
"It is your decision." Smith catches the words, and hears the clink of metal against wood, that deadened, hollowed ringing sound. "But each one of us has a part to play, whether it is dictated by ourselves, or by something else."  
  
Smith and waits until Seraph's footsteps disappear, and he turns around.   
  
  
  
She opens the door and stands in the doorframe. He is standing outside, one hand hovered over the doorknob.   
  
"Hello." She says, and smiles, walks back into the room, ignoring the white of the hallway, ignoring the fact that there is a programming room. "I thought you had thrown it away." She busies herself with her nails, inspecting them. "That was your intention last time, _n'est pas?_"  
  
"Yes." He says, his voice is a monotone, and he feels dead. He wants the adrenaline back, he wants to feel a semblance of blood pounding through his head, he wants to make his lips work, he wants to make them frown, maybe smile in arrogance. He wants to laugh at something, be angry, furious, pound something into the ground, he wants to feel all of this coursing through his body, what the Matrix has given him, what he has been written with, written for. He lifts his head up, looks at the Merovingian's wife, and she pretends she doesn't notice, only looking at herself in the mirror. He feels nothing.   
  
"And did you throw it away?" She asks. "Was it given back to you?"   
  
He doesn't answer, but takes a seat, and watches her leisurely, watches her thick black hair cascading over her shoulders, watches her waist move as she twists around to face him, so she can look at his face, although it is impassive. She shouldn't ask so many questions, when she knows the answers.   
  
She stares at him in silence, and even without touching him, he can feel her reaching out into his mind, her fingers weaving through the thoughts that constitute his database, her nails tripping over the irregular patterns, her knuckles scraping the tangible. She sees everything, it seems like, without using her eyes. No, but her eyes are looking at him, big pools of black nothingness, and she is a machine as well. They are all machines, and there is no reason why she should be amusing herself with her petty games, why her husband should be wasting his life when he could be existing in oblivion.  
  
"You are feeling... what?." She says, draws back, and Smith feels the icy fingers draw away, and he unconsciously presses a hand harder into the material of the couch, relieved. She laughs. "Contempt? For me? For my frivolous lifestyle?"   
  
She shakes her head sadly. "But you are in bliss, you are in ignorance. For when you have been functioning as long as I have, when your programming is exhausted, you must resort to these things to keep yourself amused. And life is absurd, yes, but there are so many things to watch."  
  
She is walking towards him, and he wants to ask, her why she is not being guarded, why she trusts him with her life like this, opens doors for him, but he doesn't. She sits down across from him, but leans forward so that her collarbones are protruding, so that he can see the milky white flesh of her chest, the shadow there that would entice men, that had seduced the Merovingian once.   
  
She leans in, whispers conspiratorially, as if she were a girl planning a secret meeting. "But, my dear program," she says, her lips shaping the words carefully. "we are A.I. We can adapt to _anything_ we want to, we can learn new things, and discard the old. And that is what makes you different, that is what makes me different, it's because we are like _them._"  
  
She means the humans, of course, Smith realizes, and looks out her window, watches a bird take flight.   
  
"We," she says, sitting back, regarding him with a curious eye, "are free to feel whatever we want. We don't confirm to anything. The reason why I tell you this is because otherwise you would go on like nothing had ever happened since your _death_." She smiled. "You hate him." She takes a breath, and expels it, this simple motion of breathing. "Why?"   
  
_Because he killed me._ Smith thinks. _Because if I kill him, then I won't have to exist anymore._   
  
"Does it bother you that I kissed him?" She says.   
  
_If I kill him, I won't have to exist anymore._ He thinks. The rare spark of anger when he first saw him, when he first caught him at the bottom of the skyscraper, the struggling as he had been shoved in the car, his brows had furrowed, he had asked for his _phone call,_ the workings of the modern day, he had asked for something that had resembled justice, and it had all been a facade. And when he had fought Smith for the last time, when he had dared to resurrect, something had happened, and for one moment, their codes had mixed together, and it had been so intimate, so shattering, it had ripped him apart and thrown him back together again. And he had come back, and when they had fought, one hundred against one, before he discovered the key that led him here, he had tried to infect him the same way, had managed to tap inside that source of repressed life, because when Neo faced him, his face betrayed _nothing._  
  
For that one moment, he had known what was inside his head, what the inner workings of his mind were.  
  
"Does it bother you?" She was saying, and he didn't hear her.   
  
For that _one moment,_ he thought, and he had known everything.

That was a really random chapter, but only because Smith's thoughts are getting more and more screwy. And why does he have that key, anyway? I will get around to that in the next chapter… ^_^;;; Meanwhile, reviews are really appreciated! ::hinthintcoughcough:: I seem to do this after every chapter, don't I? Subtly (yeah right) hinting? O_o Forgive me!! But I grovel thus anyway. Ergo. I don't think I used that in the right context. _  



	4. 4exe

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A:/run/program/4.exe

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Disclaimers: The Matrix belongs to those pervert brothers who think they can do everything… direct, write screenplays, produce… 

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Warnings and Rants: This is a Smith-fic, and I'm experimenting with the style. Will be slashy, but for now, you can look at it as a piece of Smith introspective-ness. Once I start to introduce Neo into it, though… WAHA!!

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Summary: Smith is doing a lot of thinking lately. What about the time the Agents tried to delete him? And what does Seraph want now??

****

Radishface

  
  
When he exits the mansion, the chateau, the gilded cage for exiles, those white walls, the marble tiles, he is in the programming room, and it is silent.   
  
Persephone is the warden, he thinks. She is a pretender of things, and she chooses to ignore what is in front of her. They think of nothing to do but amuse themselves, they only want what they want.   
  
_Then what do you want?_   
  
_Aren't you an exile, like them?_  
  
He reasons to himself, no, I am not. I am not _like_ them, I am merely _one of them._ This simple unity, under this similar name, does not mean we are the same thing. I could not serve anything other than the Matrix. I could not serve anything else than my position, this exterminator of these things that rise up from the ground, like weeds, like jagged metal in an unfinished complex.   
  
The Matrix is a two-dimensional plane, he thinks. The Matrix is only so simple, it is only so complex. I was created to serve it, and thus I live.   
  
_But it has rejected you._  
  
It's simply denial, he thinks. He knows he has been rejected, the process of deletion was almost complete, Agent Johnson and Agent Lunning had come back to the apartment hallway, had seen him lying there, had picked him up, had put him in the back of the car, and had driven away, back to this programming room, and through one of the doors.   
  
He does not remember anything from that time, but he _knows._  
  
There was the black of everything, he knows, when his eyes were shut and his respiratory functions were broken, and his cardiac systems in arrest, all semblance of being _human_ washed away from him. His clothing had been damaged, ripped, his glasses had not been retrieved when his system had tried to reboot. His code had been so disturbed that it had been reported his eyes had changed colors when they were open, that his joints had twisted in different ways, that his lips had seemed to be shifting around his face, as if testing for an adequate place to settle. It was reported that his hands were reaching out for something, his fingers grasping for something, on their own accord.  
  
He remembered an emptiness.  
  
He had been saying something, half-delirious, half-insane, and this was not right for a machine. Agent Johnson and Agent Lunning had watched as he was repaired, as his head was split open and the mindset there was exposed, as the blood ran forth, as he felt pain, and he wondered why, he wondered how. He had not been programmed to feel _pain._  
  
It was an acute sensation as he felt himself slowly being restored, the spindly fingers of the surgical machines tapping into him, rewriting his code, updating him with new information, the previous instructions that had been given to Agents from the higher order, the ones he had missed. He remembered a new assignment, receiving new orders, and none of them involved these rebels, none of them involved _Neo._   
  
And when he had been capable to think for himself, to experience the synapses of data being transmitted between his understanding and his knowledge and his thoughts, he had searched for that _directive,_ that edict, and when he realized he couldn't find it, he had doubted it. There was a mistake, he told himself. It was an _error,_ that he couldn't find this search and destroy command, the one that had Neo as its center target.  
  
When he woke up, when he opened his eyes and they weren't green or red or yellow but they were _blue,_ he saw Agent Johnson and Agent Lunning sitting there, their own eyes concealed by the glasses, their faces impassive, and he knew it was _elemental,_ this engraved lapse in _purpose._  
  
Smith had not bothered to hide this fact. It did not matter to him at the time that despite the repairs he had undergone, he was still fundamentally flawed. He wouldn't have been able to hide it if he had tried, if it had meant something to him. At the time, he was struck by a sense of complete irrelevance, and silently agreed with the other two Agents that his existence was a triviality, that it was for the best interests of the Matrix for him to eliminate him.  
  
But if he had not thought of Neo--   
  
If he had not racked his mind for those specific orders, _destroy him, kill him, obliterate him,_ if he had not done _that,_ he would have been without fault, without this fatal miscalculation.   
  
Agent Johnson and Agent Lunning had known what he was thinking.   
  
_Where is he?_  
  
Agents did not fail, they did not lie lifeless on the ground for several hours after they were damaged. When they fell, they arose, simply because the ground was the Matrix, their world was the Matrix, and it was an alimentary part of their lives. They were not humans, and the ground was not some hard, foreign thing to them, something that they made contact with simply because of gravity.   
  
When Neo had lunged at him, he had seen through what was material and flesh and he had overrun the boundaries of matter.   
  
That was an inescapable feeling, when Neo had invaded him like that, their codes merging, their codes tangling and fusing and it was like fingers, like electricity, had curled around the fiber of his grasp of his reality, distorting it.   
  
He had _become_ Neo for a moment.   
  
He had experienced this thing that was happiness, that was frustration. He had known a boy named Thomas Anderson, who had saw a rabbit run over the street and he had seen what it was like when Thomas Anderson had a dream where he died and he had seen it when Thomas Anderson had gotten drunk one night at a party and had taken to bed some girl he didn't know, woke up with a sense of disillusionment, had seen a ceiling that was unfamiliar to him, how this feeling was so familiar.   
  
They had taken the wires off him, they had escorted him into a different room. And he had gotten up, he had complied, he had known what their intentions were.   
  
Past another set of green doors, he was instructed to sit in the middle of the room, a huge, empty room with a chair in it, and he had done as he was instructed. The door locked when it was shut, and there were no windows. A light hung at the far end of the room, no switch to turn it on or off.   
  
There was that sense of duty running through him, one that knew that programs irrelevant to the Matrix were obligated to be deleted, that they owed their existence to the Matrix, and should give themselves back into it, return back to the source.   
  
So he sat there, looked straight ahead, and noted the way the light played off the walls, how he cast a shadow. And then there was a pang in his arm, and he looked at it, saw that his fingers were missing. He also noted that he couldn't speak anymore, he noted how his vision seemed to waver, how the light in front of his eyes seemed to flicker before him, how the light didn't seem to be a light anymore but fluorescent birds, how they flew out of the room, into the ceiling, left ripples behind them, how they turned black and grey and silver.   
  
And then he felt it, the fingers in his head, taking away his functions, little by little, leaving empty spaces where they had touched, how they had probed, how they had stolen.   
  
_No._ He thought, and the birds disappeared, and he saw the light again, in all its clarity.   
  
And the fingers dug harder, and he saw the image of Thomas Anderson, lying awake in the morning, feeling like he didn't belong, like he didn't exist, like there was something else out there, and he knew that they were going to take that away from him, this last _human_ image of him, of Neo, who was infallible and invincible and absurd in his idealist world, and he _didn't want them to._   
  
The world seemed to hold in abeyance, the process of deletion seemed to stop. Smith realized he had stood up, the chair had been knocked back. And he looked at his fingerless hand, this grotesque thing, and had willed it, and then his fingers appeared again, just as the door burst open.   
  
"Sit down." Agent Lunning said, Agent Johnson behind him, and then something foreign came over him, a feeling of _pain,_ fingers digging sharply into his head, taking him by force, almost wrenching him back to the center of the room. He could hear gears turning outside, machinery working, the sound of crying metal, and he saw the darkness of the hallway outside.  
  
And he realized he could speak again, and he whispered something, he laughed. "No, I won't."   
  
But he was, when Agent Johnson came over and forced him down on his knees, turning his face towards the chair, shoved his head down so that it came in contact with the chair, he thought he felt something liquid in his mouth, like blood, but he was a machine, and he was tasting metal inside his mouth.   
  
_No._ He thought, and maybe that was how he escaped.   
  
And it was because of Thomas Anderson's _memories._  
  
Smith is leaning against the door, the door that leads to the Chateau, and he laughs, because it is ironic, these figments of imagination, these fleeting memories of emotions, all within him now, and it was--  
  
There couldn't be a way to describe it, and there wasn't, because what was he only a machine, told to analyze something as complex as a human, something as foreign and alien as a human?  
  
He is always questioning things now, he is always wondering, trying to find reasons to do things. It is in his nature to question, it is in his nature to doubt and reject anything that is biological, anything that is living. He wants to find that reason, he wants to see the function behind it, he wants to rip it apart with his hands, with these fingers that had disappeared once, that had come back.   
  
Smith looks at the fingers on his hand, flexes them, watches the light play on his cuffs, on his sleeves. And there is speculation-- why is he mesmerized by this simple thing? Light is photons, light is composed of waves, it gives to sight, it gives to vision, and he knows that he could function without it, relying upon other things to tell him his coordinates, his position, in the Matrix. He knows that he could function without sight, without smell, or touch, or without hearing anything. He doesn't need language, he doesn't need this basic form of communication, the one that makes him shape his lips to say things.   
  
He doesn't need it, but he thinks about it now, and it feels heavy to breathe, to commit himself to this simple motion of respiratory necessity.  
  
_It is not necessary for you._  
  
Neo's voice whispers something into his ear, and he has the urge to put his hands there, to block out the sound, but he resists, because he knows it's not there.   
  
_Do you want to see me?_   
  
His jaw is clenched, his hands are fisted at his side, and he is trying to prove to himself that he doesn't need _him_ to dictate what he wants, what he doesn't want, trying to tell himself this thing, this mantra. He is repeating it to himself, that he doesn't feel it where Neo's code is still inside him, unerased, coursing through him like blood through a human, giving him this semblance of oxygen, reminding him that he can never forget, reminding him that he has a little part of a _human_ in a machine's body.   
  
He still can remember it when he tried to infect Neo, a final solution, a desperate one, and he was trying to dislodge this feeling, he wanted it gone, and how the result was a shock through his body, a flare in his mind,  
  
_You've come back._  
  
A door creaks open, and Smith is on his guard, he looks down the hallway. A shadow of a man, and Seraph steps out, his hands folded.   
  
The man smiles at him, bows slightly. "The Oracle is waiting for you."   
  


Sorry about the belatedness of this chapter-- I love this thing, and I will finish it! ::resolve exuding from her computer:: But I got my computer privileges taken away… oh, what a child I am.

Reviews are MUCH appreciated! ^_^ And thanks to everybody who have reviewed the previous chapters… they mean a lot to me. XD


	5. 5exe

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A:/run/program/5.exe

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Disclaimers: The Matrix belongs to those pervert brothers. Yes,_ those_ brothers.

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Warnings and Rants: This is a Smith-fic, and I'm experimenting with the style. Eventually will be slashy, but for now, it's all pretty general. I'm getting there, though… slowly… slowly… __ 

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Summary: Agent Smith visits the Oracle, she tells him some kooky stuff, and then visits Persephone, and she shows him something interesting. 

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Status: 5/?

****

Radishface

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* * * 

There was a time when he wouldn't have known what was moral, there was a time when he wouldn't have know what his own thoughts were. 

But it is all very clear to him as he follows Seraph down the sterile white of the hall, these familiar doors, their soft green colors staring out at him, and any moment now one of the Agents, the real Agents, their minds still controlled by the Matrix, by the Architect, they will come through one of those doors, and seize him by the arm, and drag him away to be deprogrammed. 

He can feel it-- the electricity sparking around him as he kept his eyes open behind the sunglasses, expecting the doors to open, expecting those familiar, monotonous faces to peer out behind one of the doors, say in the same intonation, ah, there you are.

But he knows that Seraph won't let them capture him, if only for now. Maybe, after he has met the Oracle, after she says what she needs to say and he hears what he needs to hear, maybe then Seraph will abandon him to his fate, and he will walk down this corridor again, and all the doors will look the same. He knows that he has come out of these doors multiple times, and it has been simple. Who is to say that they can't do the same? 

The man in front of him stops in front of a door, and Smith wonders why it matters that it is this door and not another one, aren't they all the same, don't the locations only appear when the correct key is placed in the keyhole? 

And Seraph takes out a key, and it is a little silver key, a regular household key, and it turns in the lock, and he can hear the faint sound of heartbeats thudding in his ear, and maybe they are his own. 

The room is simple, and a woman sits on a chair in the middle of the kitchen, and she smiles at him, and he knows that this is a smile that she presents to everyone, one that says, I know infinitely more than you, and it shall remain that way. And isn't she a rogue program as well? That the Architect would have endowed such a program with boundless knowledge, encased in the form of riddles, and he feels a snarl in the back of his throat, for hadn't he once been a loyal emissary of the Matrix, its servant, its tool, and what had he known? 

He hadn't know anything until Neo had flown at him, eyes undecipherable, and Neo's code had mixed with his own, and Agent Smith, because he was still an Agent at the time, knew that it wasn't code, but that it was flesh and blood, the essence of a soul of a human being. He had known everything, but those thoughts, those complexities, had unraveled themselves in front of him, endless layers of ribbon waiting to be peeled away, and he couldn't do it, because they were all riddles, just like what the Oracle knew, just like what the Oracle would never be able to tell. 

"Smith." She says, and her voice might be kindly, but it's like a mountain of steel, every word dripping with hidden ice. "I trust you haven't waited long."

"For what?" He finds himself asking, and his legs feel strangely numb, as if they are frozen, rooted to the ground, and he can't move. "I haven't waited for you." 

Her eyes flash, and her smile lessens, the room around them seems to grow a little darker, the sun outside seems to disappear behind the clouds. "My dear." She says. "Everybody waits for their prophecy, the day their destiny is written for them. That is the inherent nature of humankind, their curiosity, their weakness." And here she smiles again.

"I'm not human." He says, and she starts to laugh, as if she has expected him to say this, but of course she has, she's the Oracle, isn't she, she's like the one at Delphi, the woman who murmurs unintelligible things to the priests who interpret what she says, except now there are no interpreters, and Smith is on his own. 

"Oh, my boy," she says, and gazes at him, almost fondly. "When did you lose your inherent programming?" 

And his eyes widen just a little, and he refuses to believe what she is insinuating, yet it is there as clear as glass, and he turns abruptly, only to see Seraph standing at the door, his arms folded, his eyes watching him, unwavering in their resolution. 

"Smith." The Oracle says. "The moment Neo drove into you, the moment he realized he was the One, the moment he drove into you with the purpose to defeat you, that was when you lost your innocence."

His eyes are fixed upon Seraph, the white of his shirt, the dark buttons that go up his neck, his hands, strong, smooth, perfect, as only a machine's should be. The glasses hide Seraph's eyes, and he can't tell what the other program is thinking, what his purpose is other than to lead unsuspecting souls to the Oracle to have their lives judged and misjudged, if Seraph has any other will than to be a messenger boy, this privileged messenger boy, the one who has to fight and prove his opponents worthy of the Oracle, to prove that his opponents may have the brawn, but not the mind, to decipher what the Oracle wants to tell them. 

"Smith." The Oracle says. "This has happened six times. The One will choose which door to pass through, for Zion or for the Matrix, and Smith, his life does not depend on yours, like yours depends on his. To him, you are but another machine." 

"Smith." The Oracle says, and she stands. "The past six times, the One has always chosen to walk through the door that will save Zion, the one that will supposedly save mankind. Yet the Matrix reboots, my child, and it is restored, and Zion lives, only to die again. Perhaps Neo will be kind enough to break the endless cycle, and free us from this routine. Perhaps Neo will have a reason to make a different choice." She walks over to him, and turns him around, gently, so that now he is facing her, his eyes carefully shielded behind the glasses. 

The sun pours in through her windows, coming in slits through the blinds, and he can hear Seraph breathing behind him, the Oracle's hands on his shoulders, and again, he is so very aware of everything, of the children playing in the next room, except they are not children, but are also programs, and he thinks that this place is like the Chateau, but without the delusions of grandeur, without the illusions that strive to make it a wonderland, for it is here that the programs seek to interfere with the Matrix, while in the Chateau, internal affairs keep the Merovingian from expanding elsewhere. 

"For six times I have told you this, and you never listen." The Oracle steps back, regards him with a slight smile on her face, a disappointed one, a derogatory one, a compassionate one. "My child, you inhabit the Matrix, and every time it restarts, you are reborn. But you do not lose the memory that is imprinted within you-- only that you hesitate to resurrect it." 

"Should you give him a reason to change?" The Oracle says, and she seems to be talking to herself now, her voice a hushed sound, as if conferring with a private audience, and he feels like a spectator. "Has Neo served penance enough for humanity's transgressions? Has he borne the weight of the sins of humans? Will his decision serve to doom humanity to another eternity of delusions?" Her eyes alight on Smith, wide and indifferent. "Do you know why this is the seventh version of the Matrix, why the past Ones have failed to enlighten the race of humans, why Zion remains but an underground city?" 

And he shakes his head, because he doesn't know why, and maybe he wants to know, maybe he doesn't. An inner rage seethes inside him, and he feels the concentration of it in his chest, and it's stifling him. His fists are clenched at his sides, he stares at the kitchen tiles. 

She sits back down and reclines slightly in her chair, and he hears it creak under her weight. She closes her eyes and folds her hands together, purses her lips. "You are selfish, my boy. You won't let him go." 

Seraph takes him by the arm, guides him to the door, and in that instant, he takes out his gun and points it at her, pulls the trigger. He feels the recoil, he celebrates in his mind as the images come pouring forth, the Oracle, dead, even though she can never die, blood on the kitchen counters, even though she's not flesh, the children running in and watching, even though they aren't children. 

She sits there and watches as it approaches her head, and the bullet stops between her eyes, and she looks at him serenely. "I don't blame you." She says, and the bullet slowly gains acceleration again, in the opposite direction, back towards where he's standing, by the door. Seraph is behind him; the gun is wrenched out of his hand, his arms twisted behind his back. "I don't blame you for your selfishness. It's not even that you are selfish-- it's just that you don't know anything else."

It's always at times like these that Neo appears in his head, not as the One, but as Thomas Anderson, his white shirt and his black tie and his desperate expression as he's being arrested, as he's being forced into the car. Smith thinks, it wasn't supposed to change, it was supposed to stay the same, cat and mouse, me always chasing after you and that it meant something to you, that you had to constantly run away from me. You were vulnerable, and I was invincible, I had power over you, Thomas Anderson. And now you don't care. You don't care, because you have her, you have Trinity.

The Oracle is looking at him, not really seeing him, but still looking at him, and reading what he is thinking, and she continues. "You don't know that maybe his freedom is worth a little of your emptiness, for only a little while. You don't know that maybe his freedom will liberate you as well."

The bullet stops in front of his chest, and then drops harmlessly to the ground, a clinking sound as it hits the tiles. 

"Goodbye, Smith." The Oracle says, and she smiles again, that enigmatic smile, that mocking smile. "When I see you next, you may be an Agent again." 

Seraph opens the door for him, and instead of the white corridor he expects to see, he sees one that is dimly lit, flickering light bulbs glimmering, metallic sounds in the background, a woman crying in the next apartment. And Seraph shows him out, and then closes the door behind him. 

Smith swings around and opens the door, expecting Seraph's emotionless gaze, the Oracle's piercing one, but it's an empty room, whitewashed walls, a light hanging from the ceiling, a single chair the only piece of furniture in the room. He sees Agent Johnson, who rises up from the chair, unsurprised to see him, as if he had been expecting his arrival the entire time. 

"Smith." He says, and begins walking towards the door. "Don't run this time. The Matrix needs you. They'll reprogram you, and you'll be one of us again."

But what if I don't need the Matrix?

He closes the door, and Agent Johnson's footsteps die away. When he opens it again, it's the same room, but Johnson isn't there any more. 

* * * 

When he turns the handle of the door, she's not there. Instead, he's in a kitchen of some sort, chefs and waiters dressed in white and black fluttering here and there, steam rising off the pots and pans, sudden gushes of fire and the exclamations that go in hand with it, the sound of things sizzling, the heavy humidity that hangs over his head, the scent of the sweat of people. 

Nobody spares him a second glance, and he takes his sunglasses off. It is at this point that she walks through the door he just opened, and he peers over her shoulder. Instead of the maintenance hallway, he sees something like a restaurant, and can hear the strain of a string quartet over the bustle of voices. 

"Smith." She says, when she meets his eyes. She then ushers him aside and goes to one of the chefs, whispers something in his ear. The man raises an eyebrow and fiddles with his moustache, and then nods. She smiles at him, a winning smile, and then walks back to Smith. 

"What did you say to him?" He asks, and realizes that it is impudent, that it isn't his business, but should it matter to him whether he receives an answer or not? One or the other way, the responder would decide. 

Persephone's smile remains in place. "I told him to serve a cake." 

He remains stoic, and she takes his arm, leads him across the kitchen, and they ignore the bustle around them. A set of doors awaits them, and she lets go of his arm, and reaches to her waist to pull out a key. She turns the key in the lock, and a gust of cool air rushes from the door, and when she opens it, he sees snow-covered mountains, the stark white and blue; he breathes the crisp air of high altitudes. 

"Where have you been now?" She says, teasingly, tucking the key away, shutting the doors behind them. Persephone tosses her hair back behind her shoulder and leans over the balcony, her face composed, placid, and he stands next to her, stares ahead into the unrelenting cascade of mountains. 

"I went to the Oracle." 

She doesn't look at him when she says that, she does not display surprise or indignation or any emotion, she merely shrugs, as if she has been expecting this. "And what did she say?" 

"She told me I was selfish." He says, and then senses a change in the air, the way they breathe. 

"_Parce que tu le veux?_" She says, her lips shaping the words slowly, as if speaking to a child. He turns away from her, wants to press a hand to his face, and tell her that she's wrong. 

"Persephone," he says, "how many times has the Matrix been in existence?" 

She contemplates him for a while. "This is the seventh." 

"Has this happened before?" 

She nods, does not voice her assent. Persephone stares at her hands, at her fingernails, and purses her lips. "Did you ask the Oracle why you were given the key?" 

"No." He says.

"Why?" She asks, and turns to look at him. "It should have been the first question out of your mouth." Then she laughs. "Or you must have forgotten. But a machine does not _forget._" She suddenly looks wistful, her eyes luminous, a flush high on her pale face. "No, we don't forget." 

He wants to ask her if in the previous versions of the Matrix, if an Agent Smith, an exiled Agent, had ever approached the Chateau, had ever sought companionship with a woman so like him, a woman who could understand him like this. He wants to ask her if she could tell him what happened, if this exiled Agent in the previous Matrix had left her because of Neo, if he had been infatuated and obsessed with finding _Thomas Anderson_ in this stable chaos that was the One. 

"Come." She says, and infuses a spark of mirth into her eyes, replacing the solemnity of before. "I have something interesting to show you." 

She turns the key in the lock, and pushes open the doors. 

It is their foyer, he thinks, seeing the marble _M_ laid into the floor, bits of broken glass at his feet, perhaps disassembled from the chandelier, which lies on the floor. Statues lay in heaps, cluttered on the stairs, stone crumbling to dust, paintings with holes ripped in their canvases. He walks to stand in the middle, his feet avoiding the wreckage, and he stands and views the destroyed hall, and turns to look at Persephone.

"When did this happen?" 

The raw code of their surroundings flashes before his eyes, and he blinks it away distractedly, his eyes narrowing as they look at her, as they trace the line of her shoulders, her prominent collarbones, imagines what it must have been like for her to kiss Neo, for Neo to have touched her shoulder, his hand on her back.

"It happened when Neo and his friends paid a little visit." She says, and joins him in the center of the Great Hall, surveying the damage with a critical eye. "It is certainly impressive, _n'est-ce pas?_" 

"This happened the same day you kissed him?" He says, and sees raw code again, the greens and the whites, he sees Persephone through these eyes, and her code is strangely jumbled, he sees her form lift up a hand and touch his shoulder, move up to touch his neck, he sees her code as heat emanates off of her, and she is not _cold,_ not now. 

"He kissed _me._" She says, one of her hands seeking his, holding it so that they are intertwined. "I merely requested it." 

He wants to turn away, wants to walk away, wants to push the key into the lock and be back in the safe sterility of the maintenance hallway.

"I am named after the goddess who serves as the love of two lovers." Persephone says, her voice hushed, almost conspiring, and a pained smile appears on her face, and her voice shakes slightly. "I am a mediator, I am a intermediary, a negotiator of two worlds. Do not run away, do not turn away, _parce que je sais que tu veux,_ I can show you."

She touches her lips to his, and he does not move, her tentative grip is at the same time, like iron, a machine, so unsure of herself, so sure of what she is doing, he thinks, a machine, her eyes are open, but unfocussed, as warmth cascades from her fingers and she is inside his head again, searching for something, and he closes his eyes. 

__

Kiss me, Persephone is saying, as something overrides his senses, and he is standing somewhere, mirrors and black tile, and she is saying, _Kiss me, as if you were kissing her._

Smith can only watch from somewhere, he is the only one who knows where he is. He sees Neo kissing Persephone, making love to Trinity, his tension barely betrayed as he fights the Agents the Matrix sent to eliminate him, his humanity as it is being torn down by this war, his loss of compassion, his struggle to forget himself when as Thomas Anderson, his life before then, his hidden anxiety as he fights Smith and Smith and Smith again, the cold sweat that breaks inside him when Smith whispers to him, _it is inevitable, _Neo as he sees himself, sitting in that chair in the interrogation room, white shirt and tie, his head buried in his face, unshed tears streaming down his face, his voice, husky and desperate, and he's saying it to himself, _it's_ _inevitable, inevitable, inevitable._

And suddenly it's torn from him, and he's left staring at Persephone as she looks up at him. His hand is cradling the back of her skull, silky hair threading through his fingers. He stares at her, and she is composed, calm, as if something has left her, as if something has been poured out of her: sustenance, life.

She smiles at him, her eyes half-closed, and she exhales, looks away. "That was not much different than kissing Neo, was it?" 

He lets go of her, and she steps away from him. "I wouldn't know." 

She laughs. 

****

* * * 

Somewhat strange, but that's how it always is. O-o Sorry this hasn't been updated in forever. Matrix Revolutions is coming out soon! Hopefully this will agree with the canon. _ Thanks to all those who still have faith in this story! ::teary-eyed:: I luuurve you guys. 

Next part will be up soon, hopefully. The Merovingian is wondering who that man is… 


End file.
